


At the Bar after Midnight

by LucidDreaming



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Based on a Dream, F/M, Lady Loki, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-27 20:25:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17773664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucidDreaming/pseuds/LucidDreaming
Summary: It's the same room where Loki once threw Tony off the balcony. This time they're having a drink and a talk.Or, this is how Tony learns that Loki has been playing the longest game





	At the Bar after Midnight

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing fics like its 2012 and none of you can stop me. This is literally based on a dream I had a while ago and wont make any sense once End Game releases but hey, nothing will stop my fun
> 
> This is also the first fic Ive writting in like over a year. Un-beta'd because why not. If you see mistakes...ignore

Thanos was dead. Thanos was killed. He had died about a month ago. The effects of the snap reverted back, those who had turned to ash back in one piece. There were celebrations and parades and yet Tony still couldn’t really believe it.

He was sitting in the lounge room in the Avengers Tower, the city below still alive despite the late hour. He’d been drinking a little, just enough to get him tipsy. It was a nice wine and he had very well earned it.

The lights were dim and the tower was silent, most of the crew having retired a while ago. He’d been reading the news ever since they won, ever since people came back. It soothed him to hear the stories of people who made it back, of happy families and friends. Tony felt proud of himself for once.

It hadn’t been easy to do the impossible but turns out sometimes all you need is two Captains and an oddly powerful person with some weird fashion.

He still remembers Captain Marvel pummeling the shit out of Thanos. He still remembers the Grandmaster un-did everything the large grape-man had done. He remembers him waving them goodbye and poofing them back to earth.

Earth, where all the missing people had came back.

Tony had spent hours running around in the streets of New York trying to find Peter, half out of his mind. He had found him in the end sitting shellshocked on the pavement and practically carried him back to the Tower.

He kept all the Avengers back in the Tower.

Tony knew that it was mainly his PTSD-ridden brain trying to comfort itself. He was making sure that his friends were safe, that if something went terribly wrong he could help. No one seemed to mind.

The Avengers were all back in Tower.

They had been for a month and it seemed like they would stay for a bit more. It wasn’t just Tony that needed the reassurance. Strange usually visited in the mornings and left to his place and Peter only stayed full time in the weekends because he wasn’t about to leave Aunt May alone after being missing for months. The Guardians had left once they could with the certain promise of coming back. T’challa had to take care of his country.

Other than the government meetings they had to go every now and then to explain _what the hell had happened_ , things were okay.

Tony heard heels on marble floor.

Things were mostly okay.

He sat up a little bit, prepared himself for whatever was about to happen. He listened as the echo of heels became louder and clearer, closer and closer.

The newest member of the Tower happened to be Loki.

_Lady Loki_ , to be more precise.

She had been the one to actually bring Grandmaster to the battle. She was also the one who convinced him to bring back the people. Grandmaster had sent her back to earth with everyone else and the only reason Tony and the others had allowed her to actually stay with them was because of the way Thor had reacted.

It wasn’t everyday that you saw a god cry.

(Bruce had also put in some good word for her, apparently they had spent some together when he was in space.)

To be fair to her, Loki was behaving. She usually hid in the room she was given (with extra survailence) and only came out when there weren’t many people. Like right now.

Tony was the only one in the lounge area. He watched her walk in and gave a small nod. It was weird to be civil with a person who once tried to take over the world and killed hundreds of people. She had saved their ass, he had to give her that. It was even weirder to see her in normal clothes and not some Asgardian haute couture. She was just wearing jeans and a black tank top. She made her way to the bar and got the whiskey.

“Would you like some?” she asked, gently waving the bottle. He looked down at the empty glass on the coffee table and shrugged.

“Sure, why the hell not.” He muttered and got up from the sofa, walking to the bar and settling on a stool.

She poured graciously, almost filling her glass to the brim, before setting the whiskey bottle next to her. The clinked their glasses together.

“That doesn’t look like it’s getting better.” Tony said once he took a sip.

That was the other thing. She had a deep dark purple brusing around her neck. Thor had told him after the final battle that Thanos had killed Loki. Tony was pretty sure thick purple ring was the cause of death.

“I’ve noticed.” She said, glancing down for a second. “I guess I’ll have to cover it with make up or get creative with my fashion.”

“Can’t you magic it away?” he asked and Loki pursed her lips together.

“I’m afraid this isn’t something I can easily magic away.” She said in a manner that gave away that she had thought about it or maybe even tried.

“That sucks.”

“Mm-hmmm.” She took a large gulp from her drink.

“I thought earth drinks didn’t work on you godly types?”

“Oh it doesn’t.” She said and finished the rest of her glass to make a point. She reached for the bottle.

“Then why drink?”

“I get to have your pleasant company.” She said without a hint of sarcasm and drank directly from the bottle.

Hoping to hide the stupid expresion on his face Tony took a large sip. Oh boy.

“The last time we were in this room,” Loki said putting the bottle down and leaning forward on her elbows. “You were the one behind the bar-“

“And you were the one with the stupid plan.” Tony cut her.

She raised a brow and tilted her head. “It worked in the end, didn’t it?”

He furrowed his brows together and stared at her for a moment.

“We beat you.” He said. “Like, big time.”

“I mean yes, I didn’t get to rule earth but-“ she shrugged, “I got the Avengers together in the end, didn’t I?”

Tony watched as she drank, staring deep and hard into her green eyes as he made sense of what she said. The city below them was terribly loud compared to the silence of the room. Loki put the bottle down with a soft clink.

He tought about that day, the Battle of New York, about his conversation with Loki in the same room. His stupid plan on angering the newly formed Avengers.

“Wait-“ he said slowly, raising a finger. “You-“

“Yes.”

“All the time?”

“Uhuh."

“Your whole army thing?”

“Honestly the Hulk is more effective.” She said.

Tony gaped at her, pointing back to the middle of the room where she had once stood years ago and thrown him off the building.

“All of that was just to-just to get the Avengers together?” he asked. “Killed all those people just because? You couldn’t have just told us?”

“If it’ll make you feel better I did want to rule the world.” She confessed. “And no, I couldn’t have just told you.”

“I need you to explain everything.” He said, sitting upright. “Now.”

She gazed around the room and picked up her empty glass, swirling the ice-cubes absent-mindedly. She focused on the glass, her green eyes boring into it. “When I fell off the rainbow bridge I ended up going through a wormhole.” She started. Her voice was low, as if she was afraid of someone else hearing it. “On the other side of the hole was Thanos and his men.”

“They said I would work for them in this grand mission to save the universe.” She huffed a little in good humour before adding, “Ofcourse, me being me, I made some remark about being a God and not working for others… they didn’t take very kindly to that.”

“I must admit I do take great pride in how long I managed to endure torture.” She pushed herself up and put the glass down, a smile on her lips. “In the end it was a mixture of torture and brainwashing that broke me.”

Tony took a sip, unsure what to do or say. In the new angle she was standing the bruises around her neck were even more obvious. “So, Thanos sent me on my merry way but not before giving me a long speech about life and death and whatever.”

“He brainwashed you?”

“Eeh-“ she pursed her lips. “I think they best way I can explain it is that _I brainwashed_ Barton. What Thanos did to me was maybe just half of it? The Tesseract works in odd ways. I did want to rule the earth, just to see if I could more than anything truly, but it wasn’t what I was really after.”

“You wanted revenge.” Tony said.

“ _Oh yes._ ” She said and smile she gave was cold. “Sadly I also knew that there wasn’t much I could do. His men were in my head and I wasn’t going to risk torture.”

“But if you lost to someone, to some heroes…” Tony said and then tilted his head. “And those heroes locked you away, he couldn’t get to you.”

Loki didn’t say anything, she simply reached for the bottle and finished it in large gulps. Tony felt like his head was spinning. He was thinking over everything that had happened, all the things Loki had done. It seemed obvious now that he knew all the pieces off the puzzle. No wonder Loki was being obvious wherever he went. He was trying to get their attention.

“And you couldn’t do it without killing innocent people?” he asked roughly.

“No.” She met his gaze straight on. “I wasn’t going to test Thanos. I simply wanted to use the Avengers to get myself out of the equation.”

Her grip on the bottle was so tight that Tony was shocked that it hadn’t broke. Her green eyes bore into him and her body seemed to shake with every breathe. Loki was afraid of Thanos. The realisation came to him so suddenly that he almost felt like he was punched. On one hand it shouldn’t be surprising, who wouldn’t be afraid of him? They certainly were. But Loki was afraid of him still, even after the bastard had died.

“So, let me get this straight.” He swallowed. “You fake your death, end up with Thanos, get tortured and… mildly brainwashed, attack us in hopes of bringing us together and then vamoose into a prison cell in Asgard and hope for the best?”

Loki stared into nothing for a second, “More or less.”

“That’s… still not a great plan.” He shook his head.

“I had to make do.” She said. “At the time he didn’t have the Stones and I knew that it would take time to get them all together. I figured by the time he got here your team would be enough. I hoped that he would forget about me.”

“And yet when it came to it you came back to help.” Tony said. “Turns out all these years weren’t enough to make your team stronger.” She said dramatically. “Someone had to be the saviour, might as well be me.”

“A humble hero too.” Tony snickered before nodding towards her. “But that’s not why you came back, is it.”

She glared at him and he stared back with a shit-eating grin. It was shocking how easy she was to get along with when she wasn’t trying to destroy the world.

“Thor.” She confessed. “I came back for my brother. Turns out I do like the idiot.” She rolled her eyes and then like a snake moved forward and jabbed a finger on his chest. “If you tell this to him I will sew your mouth together.”

He held back a laugh and lifted his hands in surrender. “Not a word.”

“ _Not.a.single.word_.” she hissed.

“Promise.” He said and chuckled. “I guess siblings are siblings no matter how godly they are.” He shook his head with a smile. “No wonder he’s been so protective of you ever since you came back, if my brother… Sister? Faked her death three times I would be too.”

“I suppose.” She said and grabbed his glass, finishing it.

As she drank his whiskey down Tony’s eyes got fixed on her throat. First on the way the skin and muscles moved as she drank and then on the ugly purple and black bruises. Slowly his smile fell as the things he said put themselves together in his mind.

“Loki.” He said and prompted her to stop drinking his drink. She lifted a brow. “You didn’t fake your death, did you?”

She slowly put down the glass, not meeting his gaze. Finally, after what felt like a century, she sighed deeply. “No.” She said.

“You died.”

“Thanos killed me.” She gave a humourless huff and a smile. “I suppose I can say I also died because of the snap.”

Her hand moved up to her throat, gently touching it as she stared into Tony’s eyes. She grabbed her throat, clawing and recreating Thanos’ handy work. Tony could now see the shapes, see where his fingers had been.

“When I was younger I came up with the ridicilous idea of cheating death.” She said. Her grip on her throat softened before she dropped her hand, leaning on the bar again, much closer to Tony this time. “I thought it would be fitting, I’m the god of trickery and chaos after all. So I read and I read and I found this book and it explained how to speak with Death.”

“Your… sister?” Tony inched his brows together in confusion.

“What? No.” She waved a hand. “Hela was the God of Death, I spoke with Death itself. Although in all fairness she did take the form of a woman.” She explained, as if these were completely normal and well known things.

Tony would retort but he was far too interested and Loki was far too close to him. He realised that he didn’t mind the closeness.

“Death apparently has a great sense of humour.” She said and Tony managed to snap out of his thoughts to pay attention. “After a long discussion we came to the agreement that I would get exactly one free pass from her. She said there would be some limits but she would allow it as long as I helped her with some errands.”

“So you’re not actually cheating death but making a deal with Death?”

“Yes.”

“That’s cheating.”

“Thank you.” She said and then looked down. “Since I had only faked my death before I still had my free pass. I didn’t know how exactly it would work but Death keeps her word.” She slowly licked her lips and forced herself to look at him. “I did die. Thanos snapped my neck. Before that however… I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t more. I can still remember how loud my blood was pumping in my ears and how Thor was screaming.”

Tony leaned on his forearms, mirroring her, inches away from her face, listening intently.

“I opened my eyes next to her. Turns out there is a long time between dying and being dead. When I woke up Thanos had already purged half the universe. Death wasn’t too happy about it, something about the balance of universe. She wanted me to find a way to fix what he had done. So I made a different deal. I undo Thanos’ work, she brings back a few friends of mine to life.”

Tony nodded, he had heard Thor talk about some of his friends coming back to life with no explanation.

“So I came to life, my one free pass used, and made my way to the Grandmaster.”

“Who the hell is he anyway?”

“Some creep with lots of power. I had to stay with him for a long time before I gained his trust again. The last time I saw him we were running away on his orgy ship.”

“ _His what?”_

“Orgy ship.” She repeated with a grin. “You should have one.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Anyway.” She shook her head. “Strange contacted me at some point –time related magic works odd, don’t look at me like that- so I begged Grandmaster to help me, made a story of half-truths to get him to pity me and in the end it worked.”

“When we first came back here I told Thor all about it.” She said and then made a face. “Mainly because he’d thought I’d faked my death yet again. He wasn’t too happy about having the mourn me thrice in one life time.”

“That’s why he’s been so over protective.” Tony said.

“It’s annoying but I’ll allow him.” She said.

“And the whole Lady Loki thing is because… ?”

“I swear only midgardians are this confused about it. No other realm bats an eyelash at this.” She chuckled.

"I just wanted to know!" Tony protested. "You just show up in a new skin, sue me, I'm curious."

“There are conditions to coming back from the dead. The first one being that what is dead may never come back.”

“But you came back.”

“Yes and no.” She said and came even closer to him, as if she was about to share a secret. She had a sly smile and her eyes were fixed onto his.

“You know I’m a shapeshifter, yes?”

“Thor mentioned it.” Tony said. This close he could smell whatever perfume she was using. He could also hear his own heart beating a bit faster. _Calm down idiot_. “He also mentioned you being a frost giant.”

“I’m both.” She said. “I’m going to try to explain in the simplest way. Shapeshifters usually pick one true form. This doesn’t have to be the form they are born as, just whatever they pick in life to use most. I was born as a frost giant but my true form is that of an asgardian. I can make myself look like anyone and then revert back to that form. It makes it easier in general, to have something I can immediately snap back to in a dire situation.”

Tony nodded along, it didn’t seem that hard to understand. He also pushed himself a little closer to her. If she noticed, she didn’t let it show.

“When I died I was in that form.” She said, a bit more serious. “That can never be my true form again. I needed a new one so I choose this.” She said and pushed back to show off herself.

“Its a nice one.” Tony said. “But you can still technically make yourself look like your old self?”

“Technically? Yes.” She said re-assummed her previous positions of being in Tony’s face. “Eventually I can.”

“ _Eventually?”_ Tony tilted his head. Loki gave soft smile.

“Thor isn’t being protective because I died.” She confessed with a sigh. “He’s being protective because my powers haven’t completely returned yet.”

“You don’t have your powers?” he asked, taken back.

“No, why do you think I’m drinking whatever this is and not something that can actually get me drunk?” she said. “My powers died with me, it takes some time for it to come back. They’re still regenerating.”

Tony thought about how she’d been hiding in her room and avoiding everyone else. He’d thought that she might have been doing it to avoid conflict but now he was starting to think, with everything he just learned, she had been resting instead.

He looked at the bruises on her neck and reached forward. He moved slowly, giving Loki enough time to protest. When she said nothing he gently moved her chin up and traced his fingers on her throat.

“If you come to my lab I’m sure I can figure out a way to heal this thing.” He said, taking in the different shades and imagining the bones broken underneath.

“This is not something you can heal, Tony.” Loki said. He looked up at her. She was looking down her nose, chin up the way he had positioned her, something rueful in her eyes. He decided that he liked the way she said his name now, without hatred or murder.

“It’s less a bruise and more a mark.”

“Of death?”

“Yes.” She said moved herself even closer to him.

The hand that was on her neck was now in her hair. She was in his face, as close as she could get without actually making out. It was too warm and Tony’s heart was beating double time. He shut his eyes, not really knowing what to do.

“Loki.” He said, his lips moving againts hers as he spoke from how close she was.

“You don’t want this, Tony.” She mumbled sweetly.

“You can’t know what I want and don’t want.” He protested, gently playing with her hair, breathing her in.

“No, I don’t.” She said. “But I do know that you’re drunk. People make mistakes when they’re drunk.”

Tony hummed and moved his hand to trace her neck. He nosed against her cheeck and nodded.

“You’re right.” He said. “We should have this talk when I’m sober.”

Loki chuckled and pulled back. Suddenly Tony felt very cold. Wasn’t that ironic, he felt warmer when the frost giant was close to him. She had a knowing grin on her.

“Well then, see you tomorrow, Tony.” She said in a low voice and walked away.

In the empty room he groaned.

_“Fuck.”_

**Author's Note:**

> By the way, Loki is still kinda lying through some of this because I refuse to believe Loki can actually pull any long-con without fucking up, I guess you can say that things just managed to work out for her. 
> 
> Also I didn't make Loki "Lady" Loki to make it a "straight" relationship. It just happened that way in my dream and although my first draft had him as he is I came up with this idea and liked it more so, there it is.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed it!


End file.
